New cases of police violence put pressure on Nicaragua's leadership.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Opponents of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega are rallying around a pair of violent episodes, both involving the Polida Nacional (PN), to poke holes in the powerful and long-serving leader's seemingly impenetrable political armor.
The first incident took place July 8 during a demonstration in front of the offices of the Consejo Suprema Electoral (CSE) in Managua, where police clashed with protestors, roughed up several journalists, and arrested a number of people, including Eduardo Montealegre, leader of the center-right Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI). Montealegre, a former presidential candidate (NotiCen, Feb. 23, 2006), holds a deputy seat in the unicameral Asamblea Nacional (AN). Several other PLI deputies were also arrested and briefly detained during the clampdown.
The demonstration was the 13th in a series of weekly protests, always on Wednesdays, that the PLI, the leading opposition group, has organized to demand fair and transparent elections. Participants in the miercoles de protesta (Wednesday protests) campaign are seeking changes to Nicaragua's election laws and want the CSE, the country's electoral authority, to be staffed with new magistrates. They accuse the CSE of being overtly and consistently partial to Ortega and his Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) and insist that the municipal elections in 2008 and 2012 and the presidential and parliamentary votes in 2011 were marred by electoral fraud (NotiCen, Nov. 13, 2008, Nov. 17, 2011, and Nov. 15, 2012). Nicaragua's next national elections take place in November 2016.
Protestors and other witnesses say the police actions, which included the use of tear gas and batons, were unprovoked and constitute a clear violation of the right to free and peaceful assembly. "The repression against Wednesday's peaceful demonstration, the injuries to civilians, the illegal arrest of 10 deputies from this bloc, and the unwillingness of the police to assume any responsibility evidence a pattern of human rights violations by the Daniel Ortega regime in its vain attempt to quiet the just social and political demands of the Nicaraguan people," Montealegre said afterward in a PLI press release.
The PN's heavy-handed treatment of the demonstration also drew rebuke from opposition news outlets, Catholic Church representatives, the country's leading business leaders association, and the Union de Periodistas de Nicaragua (UPN), a normally pro-Sandinista journalists union, which...
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